If the sample has the form of a prismatic rod (not longer than 1 cm) and is suspended by its barycentre from an untwisted thread it is attracted in the same way but turns parallel or normal to the magnetic field, depending on whether it is paramagnetic or diamagnetic.
Other instruments identical to the one described here and made by the same manufacturer are on exhibition at the Museum of the Department of Physics of the University of Genoa, the Museum of the History of Physics of the University of Padua and in the Cavour Lycée of Turin. The wooden plug with the sample-bearing rod are missing in the former two.